sustainability – Page 3 – Deborah Makarios

July 9, 2014

Quote: Feelings (and an Award)

“it’s a feeling not a reality, and it’s temporary; when you’re in it, it feels like you always have been and always will be, but that’s an illusion.”
Chaos Girl

Chaos Girl is one of the bloggers I follow, and she has very kindly nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award.

She is, like me, an eccentric (yay!) and her posts are full of wit, wisdom, and best of all, honesty: we are none of us as perfect as we generally pretend to be, and that’s ok. Highly recommended for a refreshing read of reality.

There are two difficulties inherent in accepting this award: the technicalities of putting the award plaque in the right places on the blog (Chaos Girl has mercifully provided detailed instructions!) and selecting fifteen bloggers to pass the award on to!

That being the case, those I nominate don’t have to accept and do likewise; it is an obligation-free compliment 🙂

The Rules:
1) The nominee shall display the Very Inspiring Blogger Award logo on her/his blog, and link to the blog they got nominated from.

2) The nominee shall nominate fifteen (15) bloggers she/he admires, by linking to their blogs and informing them about it.

The Bloggers (in no particular order):

Ideophilus: he challenges my assumptions, he helps me see things from entirely new perspectives, and he always claims it’s his fault if I don’t understand 🙂 Inspiring in print and in person (and I should know, he’s my husband).

Esther Van Kuyk is (among many other things) a talented illustrator who engages with serious issues without forgetting the simple joys of life – and a great friend. Her work is available on cards and t-shirts: my favourite is the hedgehog – so cute (a correct use of the word!)

Andrea Eames of A Cat of Impossible Colour is a fellow interculturalite*, as well as an elegant, talented author.

Kristen Lamb provides the perfect blend of challenge, encouragement, and laugh-out-loud humour. Must-read for budding writers; highly recommended for anyone else looking for a good read.

K.B. Owen, Mystery Writer writes mysteries, yes, but she blogs about weird and wacky history, holidays, food, and all kinds of fun stuff. Have a look!

The Tiny Farm is a lovely little blog about moving toward a sustainable lifestyle without four acres and a cow. Very much a ‘join me on the journey’ blog rather than a ‘behold my awesomeness you eco-terrorist’ kind of blog – very encouraging!

The Dreamstress is all about historical clothing – studying it, recreating it, wearing it, and most of all having fun with it. Fascinating, accessible, and very easy on the eyes.

Dr Beth of Throwim Way Leg recounts the ups and downs of being a doctor in the back of beyond, PNG. Not suitable for those with delicate stomachs!

Cation Designs shows how enjoyably creative geekiness can be, sewing a mix of stylish everyday items and hugely fun costume pieces, among other creative endeavours. Also sometimes pictures of her gorgeous cat Walnut.

Sara Litchfield of Right Ink on the Wall is a talented writer and editor who also thinks about the big questions in life: what do we leave behind us when we go? Keep an eye out for her novella The Night Butterflies, coming out next month!

Gwyneth Hyndman of Sweet Home California is a much-travelled writer, journalist and general free-lancer who is the epitome of the life-long learner – always going someplace or trying something new! We were classmates back in our Wellington days…

Malcolm Guite is proof that form does not limit creativity, but rather provides scope for it, with his beautifully balanced sonnets circling the canonical calendar (among others). His Stations of the Cross sonnets are my particular favourites: I reread them every year.

Seven Miles of Steel Thistles is the place to go for “fairytales, folklore, fantasy, myths, legends, and children’s literature” in Katherine Langrish’s own words. Always a fascinating read.

Worthwhile Books is an unashamed book snob, so if you’re looking for reading recommendations that have screened out the mindless pap, stop by!

The eponymous Editor of the Editor’s Journal takes pop culture’s latest and asks questions which invite discussion and actually make you think before you comment. Refreshing and deservedly popular.

So there you have it: fifteen blogs I find inspiring, in one way or another. Or rather sixteen, because of Chaos Girl, who I’m not allowed to nominate 🙂

*a neologism, as far as I know. As with everything else on this blog, it’s under a Creative Commons licence, so help yourself!

March 8, 2014

The Eccentric Ethic & Æsthetic

My name is Deborah Makarios.

I’ve been blogging for the last 14 months as Sinistra Inksteyne, but eventually (dawn breaks over Marblehead, New Zealand) I realised there was little point in building an online reputation for an alter ego whose name does not appear on any other work. So Sinistra Inksteyne will have to content herself with being a URL from now on.

As Francis Bacon observed, great changes are easier than small ones, so I didn’t stop with the name. This new picture isn’t me, but it might as well be (I’m working on developing the smiley wrinkles):

As I’ve mentioned before, this blog started as a way of keeping me accountable for my procrastination, but it no longer serves that purpose. Because I am now a perfect paragon of proactivity and – ha, no, sorry, couldn’t keep a straight face. But I’m not as bad as I used to be, not by a long shot, and there’s only so much talking about it that can be done before people stop procrastinating and get right on to clubbing you over the head with a thesaurus to make you shut up.

So I thought about what I wanted to do with this blog, and I decided that I just wanted to be myself – that is, to champion the cause of weirdness, oddity and eccentricity. I believe that people are individually created by God, which means that there is no standard-issue to vary from. To put it another way, ‘normal’ is not a Christian concept.
I have a sneaking suspicion that an awful lot of apparent ‘normality’ is due to peer pressure. People feel they have to fit one of a limited selection of moulds or they will be ostracized – and they may be right about this. But is it worth the price you pay?

It is a sad fact of human nature that if we are surrounded by one worldview, it requires a lot of effort to not succumb to it. As the letter to the Romans says, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould.” (Now there’s a nauseating thought.) But resistance is hard. It is less hard when there are more of you. Enter the internet.

I am weird. I freely admit it. I am odd. I have never been and never will be cool. And I’m fine with that. If that’s the price I have to pay for not having to chop off the bits of me that don’t fit (like some Ugly Stepsister of the soul) then please, put it on my tab.

And so I give you (fanfare please…)

(…thank you)
the Eccentric Ethic & Æsthetic!

Eccentric: The Oxford Dictionaries’ definition includes the phrase “unconventional and slightly strange” for both adjective and noun.
If my picture doesn’t appear in the dictionary under the word ‘eccentric’ by the time I die, I shall have Unconventional and slightly strange graved (hur hur) on my tombstone. The oddity is partly, in my case, the result of being raised in a mixture of cultures, but one can only blame one’s upbringing for so much.

Ethic: One of my main reasons for not following the mainstream is because I follow Christ, and the two diverge widely. So truth is important to me. (Truth is my middle name – really…) Justice is important. Sustainability is important. Compassion, creativity and joy are important. Conformity – not important.

Æsthetic: Clothing sends a message. In my case, that message is “unconventional and slightly strange”. I find it lowers expectations that having the physical characteristics of the majority ethnic group means I have the same culture and value system. My personal appearance signposts my differentness – an early warning system, if you like. And it’s more fun wearing whatever I like anyway. I wish everyone felt freer to wear what best expresses who they are inside. Visual identity is a fascinating thing.

To sum up: this is a place for me to have fun being my eccentric self, and a place where others will hopefully feel encouraged to be their eccentric selves – particularly if they share some of the same eccentricities. As CS Lewis wrote: “Friendship is born at that moment when one man [/woman/small furry creature from Alpha Centauri] says to another: “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…””

January 4, 2014

Look Both Ways Before You Cross

Looking forward to the new year, but also looking back over the year just passed. Coincidentally, it has been exactly a year since I started this blog.

During that time I have written all of eighty-eight posts (although about 25 are simple quote-and-picture posts). Over the course of the year I have gone through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, reviewed various books on writing, and asked for advice on a myriad of subjects (moving house, staying sane…) which I mostly didn’t get.

I also set goals for myself (see here and here) which I mostly failed to meet, in that I did not finish my WIP by December 31st. But I did make some strides in taking myself more seriously as a writer and doing a bit of would-like-to-be-professional development. As with so many things, Work In Progress.

Among the questions which I have mulled over during the year are whether to keep using my nom de plume (my parents, by some oversight, failed to name me Sinistra at birth) and what precisely it is I am trying to achieve here.

This blog was originally intended as a form of accountability against procrastination, but since no-one is actually holding me accountable but me anyway, that purpose has taken a bit of a back seat.
Procrastination is apparently one of the mysteries of the human condition, as articulated by Paul back in the 50s AD: “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.” (Romans 7:15, New Living Translation).

Motivation is perhaps key, but I struggle to find a motivation strong enough to overcome tiredness and self-doubt. Duty doesn’t cut it (unlike Frederic, I am not the Slave of Duty); ambition is by no means my strong suit – perhaps I just need to develop more character. Or a means of reminding myself of what it is I stand to lose.

In any case, over the coming year I hope to look more at subjects of interest to more than myself – that is to say, less of the writing, and more of the whatever-I-happen-to-be-obsessed-with-at-the-moment – steampunk, knitting, millinery, sustainability, odd bits of history, or any combination of the above.

Looking back, my most popular post by far (inasmuch as I can tell, since the majority of views are recorded as “homepage/archive”) is Great Wizards of Literature. I blush a little every time I see another hit on it, as it was originally titled Favourite Wizards of Literature, only some were more great than favourite. It wasn’t until after I had clicked ‘publish’ that I realised I had listed one of my own creations as a Great Wizard of Literature.

He isn’t great, really, but he’s doing his best. (If he’s very lucky, he may one day be published.) An excellent example of how not to blow your own trumpet.

The gong for Most Under-Appreciated Post (from my point of view, anyway) goes to Mid-Week Quote: Reading, for the play on word(s) if nothing else.

On an entirely unrelated tangent, if your New Year’s Resolution includes being more generous, giving to charity, doing something good for someone else or even (aim high!) saving someone’s life, consider this from Throwim Way Leg, one of the blogs I follow.
Getting an ultrasound machine really will make a life-or-death difference to people in Papua New Guinea. Imagine if your local hospital had no ultrasound, no x-ray, no lab for tests… you get the idea.
And do please feel free to pass the link on to anyone you think might be interested.

Thanking you all for your company in 2013, and looking forward to your company in 2014, I remain,
Sinistra Inksteyne